Christmas
by rocksfalleveryonedies
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale share wine and witty banter on Christmas Eve.


There was a violent jingling noise, and then a clatter; Aziraphale sighed as tendrils of cold air snaked into his formerly cozy sitting room. "Sorry, we're closed," he called to whoever it was. He had been sure he had locked that door _hours_ ago, and he couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance.

Nothing happened for a long moment. The cold air continued to gust in.

"Merry Christmas," he added as an afterthought, wondering if he would actually have to get up to sort the matter out. "Now close the door, if you will."

The door slammed shut with another protesting jingle from the bell above the door, and the intruder spoke: "Don't be stupid, angel."

Ah. Well, that explained it; he _had_, in fact, locked that door. "Hello, Crowley." He flipped the page with two careful fingers and licked his dry lips, only looking up when the demon cleared his throat.

"Bad time?" he asked cordially, leaning against the door jam with a practiced nonchalance. One spidery hand was clutching a bottle of wine, and the other held a square package wrapped in gift paper.

"Well… I'm reading." Aziraphale looked down again and began scanning the page, attempting to relocate the place he had left off.

"There's an easy solution to that: put your book down." The demon made a beeline for the couch, tracking slushy footprints across the floor as he walked. He set the wine on the table, choosing to keep the mysterious package in his hands; it was wrapped in gold and green paper, all crisp lines and clean edges. "If I left you alone every time you were reading, we'd never see each other."

Aziraphale winced. "Please, dear… the floor. You've made a mess."  
>Crowley made the puddles disappear with a lazy flick of his hand, then looked up expectantly. "<em>Now<em> will you put the book down?"

Aziraphale conceded defeat and tucked a bookmark carefully between the wrinkled, timeworn pages; he set it down on the table beside him with another sigh. "Don't you have something better to be doing?"  
>"You don't want to see me?" Crowley asked, and there was a grin on his face despite his disappointed tone.<p>

"It's Christmas Eve," Aziraphale pointed out. "I thought you'd be out debauching the masses? Spreading low-grade misery and bruising the holiday spirit? I mean, ruining my wood floors isn't particularly nice, but I thought you'd be up to worse." He paused a moment, and then gestured to the wine bottle. "At the very least, I thought you'd be drunk by now."

"Very funny, angel." Crowley took off his leather gloves and—finally—set the package down next to the wine. "It's cold outside, and getting drunk alone isn't nearly as much fun."

"Ah. I'll go find glasses, then?"

Crowley leaned back and crossed his ankles, letting out a satisfied hiss as he reached towards the fire to warm his hands. "Please."

Aziraphale stood, stretched, and disappeared into the other room to retrieve two glasses. "Move over," he commanded when he reappeared, and the demon obliged.

"You know, I'd have thought you'd be the busy one," Crowley mused as Aziraphale took a seat beside him on the sofa. "A demon might have nothing to do on Christmas Eve, but an angel? Tch. I don't believe that."

"I did not have _nothing_ to do, dear boy. I was reading—"

"Okay, okay. Yes. I meant no _blessings_," Crowley specified. "I thought, what with all the hype, you know, Christmas miracles…"

"Maybe it's not so much 'more blessings' as it is 'less wiles', Crowley. If you're busy here, I don't really have to go out there for people to have a nice holiday." The angel shifted uncomfortably, and Crowley knew he had struck a nerve.  
>"You didn't know I wouldn't be out, though," Crowley pointed out devilishly.<p>

Aziraphale cleared his throat. "Yes, but—it wouldn't be in the spirit of our arrangement, you see." He picked up the bottle and worked on uncorking it. "And it's cold, like you said, and—"

"I think you're just lazy," Crowley said smugly, prying the wine bottle out of Aziraphale's fingers. "Or, possibly, you think an evening with me is more fun than an evening of cliché miracles and trite old songs."

"They are not trite—" Aziraphale exclaimed.

Crowley cut him off, peering over his sunglasses with amusement in his golden-green eyes. "If I give you your present now, will you stop complaining?"

Aziraphale looked doubtfully at the package. "As a demon," he said hesitantly, "I wouldn't think you'd condone the observation of the holiday…"  
>Crowley shook his head and set the newly-uncorked bottle back down. "That's not the point," he insisted, picking up the package and depositing it on Aziraphale's lap. "Call it a winter solstice present, if it makes you feel better."<p>

"It's not going to leap out and bite me, is it?"

"Does that sound like—well, yeah. That does sound like something I would do," he admitted, with a grin that had suddenly gone sheepish. "I promise I didn't, though."

"And you're sure it's for me?" Aziraphale asked, turning his wary gaze from the package to the demon himself.

"Of course it's for you, angel. Open it."

Aziraphale shook the package hesitantly, then began to unwrap it. "You should have said something," he chastised, as his slit the cello-tape with his manicured fingernails. "I would have gotten you a gift as well."

"Oh, don't even. I'm fairly certain that buying a Christmas present for a demon is an insult."

Aziraphale pulled at the paper carefully, taking an absurd amount of care to straighten the creases. "What happened to all that 'winter solstice' malarkey?"

"You," Crowley explained, "are missing the point entirely. The point—"

Aziraphale didn't hear whatever point Crowley was making, because it was at that moment that pulled the green-gold paper away to reveal a book—a large volume, old and dusty and bound in cracking leather. An excited 'you shouldn't have' died on his tongue when he saw the title on the thick spine.

His face went a sort of purple color. "You—this—Crowley, this is my book! You took this from me, didn't you? I've been looking for it!" He began a frenzied inspection, searching for a single spot or wrinkle that would justify the smiting he so wanted to give to his companion.

"Don't have kittens," Crowley chuckled. "I didn't hurt it, I promise. I might be mean but I'm not stupid."  
>"Why would you—Crowley! Stop laughing, this is <em>not<em>_funny_—you could have damaged it! Why would you do this?"

Crowley thought the angel might take a swing at him, and he knew he would deserve it; but Aziraphale simply sat with the book clutched to his chest, looking absolutely affronted.

He hid his sudden guilt behind a serpentine smile. "Who says I have to be out there to bruise the holiday spirit?"

Aziraphale glared with a ferocity that would have discorporated Crowley a thousand times, if glares could do such things. "Oh, you old snake."

"And you wouldn't have it any other way."

Aziraphale wadded up the paper he had so carefully removed and threw it at the demon; Crowley ducked, but not quite in time, and the crinkled ball of wrapping paper hit him in the head. "Ouch," he exclaimed flatly.

"That didn't hurt," the angel informed him, setting the book down reverently and sweeping an invisible speck of dust from the cover. "Now. Are you going to pour, or shall I?"

Crowley took the bottle without a word and poured two glasses of old cabernet. He pushed one towards Aziraphale, who lifted it to his lips as if to drink; Crowley stopped him. "A toast is in order, wouldn't you say?" The demon's eyes were twinkling from behind their dark lenses. "A toast, to—"

He stopped, thinking, and Aziraphale laughed to see him so lost for words.

"To a happy new year?" he suggested amiably.

"I'll drink to that." The demon clicked their glasses together with a wink, and Aziraphale smiled.

Perhaps it would be a good year, after all.


End file.
